Last night was a very very difficult evening for me. Even writing this the next morning is hard. Those are not my Huskers. Bo needs to get some stuff together and quickly. I understand not having the right players. I even understand not winning right now, but if we are going to lose, we cannot lose like that. We lost a classless game last night. Two weeks in a row, I have watched an extremely undisciplined team behave like a team from Florida. Is Bowden coaching this team? 14 penalties!?! 14!!??! 14 for over 100 yards! That is ridiculous. Rumors of our players spitting at the Missouri players?!~? This is NOT NEBRASKA FOOTBALL. Bo, get control of your team. I understand that this is not the best Nebraska team, but lose with class, poise, honor and respect and you will have the state behind you. More loses like this and we are going to get very tired very quick. You do get props for your attitude, I appreciate that you hate losing – I hate losing. I appreciate that you immediately take the blame for the loss instead of blaming your players, like Billy C. I appreciate your not giving in and rolling over for the 4th quarter.

In Lincoln, we don’t talk in terms of years, seasons, or even decades . . . we talk about eras. We all miss the Dr. Tom era desperately. We are hoping to rapidly forget the B.C. era. Why do we do this? Because football is not entertainment, it is history.

Tonight here was the scene at Fox and Hound. Epic.

Without exaggeration, there were probably close to 500 people packed in my local Fox and Hound. (Shh, don’t tell the Fire Marshall.) You could tell that Husker football people are ready again. As Jim Rome commented after interviewing Bo, “I bet there are people in Omaha and Lincoln ready to run through a wall for this guy.” Jim you are right my friend.

Now onto the game.

Overall analysis, we have a lot of work to do. A lot. If today’s game was against Missouri, we would have been handed our heads, given a polite tennis clap, tiny pat on the back, told good game and grandmas would have wept. (Mine especially.) This level will simply not win us the Big 12. Not by a long shot.

Things I loved:

Intensity (I expected it and I got it. We looked like a completely different team than last year! We looked like we actually liked to play football!)

Joe Ganz! Holy cow did he look good. 4 tds through the air! He made good reads, looked comfortable and I am not going to lie and say that my heart didn’t flutter when he broke the option left for about 30. 1Also the first NU QB to have 4 300+ yard passing games and we can be certain that he will have a few more.

Our defensive line! 8, countem 8 rushing yards from the opponent!

Getting to the quarterback.

Our offensive line. We had great success running the football. Ganz was comfortable because the line was giving him ample time to make reads.

The overall look, feel and confidence of our team.

500 people at Fox and Hound

Things I did not love:

An apparent lack of disciple, especially on defense. This can be expected with the amount of energy they were playing with and you can be equally sure that it is not something that Bo is going to put up with.

Our big play ratio. I got very very weary of seeing them break about 6 nice long pass plays. Something needs to change in the secondary by next week. Again, Missouri is a heckuva lot better than W. Mich. and will eat that crappy coverage for breakfast. And then write a thank you note.

The second half.

That crazy chick who came in late with her whooped “hubby”, got in the way, was loud, complained and then got everything comped. She was stupid and I did not like her.

All in all, it was a GREAT opener to an era. A win is definitely a win! I would like to see 8 more this year, but we DEFINITELY need to improve significantly in some major areas.